August 17, 2016

Breakout Descriptions ​

Steven Green, Principal in Residence, Assessment, Accountability and Evaluation Unit, San Diego County Office of Education

This session will highlight the most current information on the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment. Learn about the new informative features of the student score reports and useful strategies for communicating results to parents. Engage in dialogue with fellow educators on how to maximize the utilization of your summative assessment results.

Tony Mora, Director and English Learner Lead, Assessment, Accountability and Evaluation Unit, San Diego County Office of EducationNancy Sedgwick, LCAP Director, Assessment, Accountability and Evaluation Unit, San Diego County Office of Education

What will accountability look like in California in the future? How can districts align their local accountability with the new state and federal accountability? This session will look at the alignment of local, state, and federal accountability with a focus on preparing districts to respond to the new accountability, especially in the area of English learners and the new measures of school culture and climate. How can districts use this information to refine instruction, assessment, and accountability to create a program that promotes the success of all students.

Identifying and Implementing Lesson Goals to Measure Learning in Mathematics

Mark Alcorn, Mathematics Coordinator, College & Career Readiness Unit, San Diego County Office of Education

Current recommendations for lesson goals for mathematics instruction suggest rephrased state standards or chunking low-level procedures. In this workshop, participants will learn how the Standards for Mathematical Practice can be used as a tool to develop lesson goals that raise the cognitive demand for students, and provide students and teachers a method to measure learning.

All schools with multilingual learners must measure both language and content progress. English learners, and learners of other languages in immersion schools, should have their academic and linguistic growth assessed and monitored in a coherent system cognizant of how the two are interdependent. Come learn from an example of such a well-designed data management system which helped fuel outstanding achievement in a local school with diverse learners. This session will review how to effectively analyze the achievement of language learners using a time-proven model.

The English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC) will be the successor to the CELDT and will be required to be given to eligible K-12 students whose primary language is other than English. The ELPAC will be fully operational in 2018-19, but between now and then various transition steps will take place. In addition, ELPAC general performance level descriptors have been approved and are guiding this summer’s development of domain and grade/grade span-specific performance level descriptors. This session will provide up-to-date information about the implementation timeline and the ongoing development and implementation plans for the ELPAC. This knowledge will assist participants as they consider how this new assessment will support the identification of English learners as well the achievement of EL students.

Todd Langager, Coordinator, Assessment, Accountability and Evaluation Unit, San Diego County Office of EducationShannon Coulter, Lead Coordinator, Assessment, Accountability and Evaluation Unit, San Diego County Office of Education

Educational leaders are inundated with data but unfortunately numbers are too often forgettable and uninspiring to those they lead. Simple visuals and powerful stories are essential to advancing a cause and motivating and inspiring others to take action. Now, more than ever, district and school leaders need to paint a clear picture and communicate a compelling narrative about what is happening in their district or school and where they are headed. When data is combined with story, we are able to effectively communicate why our work is important and provide real-life examples of what we do, our successes, and the learning that occurs from the setbacks in our journey. This session will focus on how district and site leaders can combine the power of data visualizations and storytelling to inspire stakeholders to take action. We will explore some specific examples and technology tools to assist in creating data visualizations and stories of improvement and impact.

Steven Green, Principal in Residence, Assessment, Accountability and Evaluation Unit, San Diego County Office of Education

There is ample evidence that, when implemented effectively, formative assessment has the potential to significantly improve student learning. If we are serious about “closing gaps” with assessment use, then the formative assessment process has to be at the heart of the endeavor. However, a major issue in the widespread implementation of effective formative assessment is scaling-up professional learning for teachers. In this session, learn about resources, tools, and implementation models that could contribute to scaling up formative assessment in your schools and districts. (Resources: CSAI Collections, Smarter Balanced Digital Library, FARROP, FAST SCASS, ALP, Maryland, Michigan, Rhode Island, Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, Idaho)

Leading Improvement: Using Improvement Science to Create Meaningful Change

Juli Coleman, Director, District and School Improvement Unit, San Diego County Office of EducationJessica McCreary, Principal in Residence, District and School Improvement Unit, San Diego County Office of Education

The ability to create schools and districts that more reliably and equitably provide quality educational experiences for students is at the heart of improvement. How do we structure our improvement efforts to get there? Improvement Science offers an approach and set of tools to help leaders organize efforts to produce meaningful change. This workshop will offer an introduction to improvement science and the six principles of Improvement Science that helps educators learn fast to implement well.

Strengthening Collective Efficacy to Accelerate Student Achievement

Kristine Shipman-Belcher, Principal in Residence, Assessment, Accountability and Evaluation Unit, San Diego County Office of Education

John Hattie's research cites how strengthening collective efficacy in schools is the number one influence on student achievement. The difficulty comes at many schools in learning how to quantify and improve teacher collective efficacy. Using the old cliché, ‘what gets measured, gets done’, this session will support instructional leaders in accessing an instrument and resources to determine teacher efficacy in a manner that builds trust, transparency, and belief. Participants will be equipped with introductory skills to identify and build upon powerful efficacy changing forces that shift instructional culture and achievement.